Gary Gilmore Research

Before we begin properly developing our story line we thought it would be a good idea to do more research in to who Gary Gilmore was and find out more about the background to the crime.

Gary Gilmore was born Faye Robert Coffman on December 4th 1940, his dad was an alcoholic con man and was incredibly abusive towards the whole family. Gary had been in trouble with the law a lot through out his life and had been in and out of juvy, and then prison, because of this.

He killed 2 people who he had no attachment to shortly after his girlfriend ended their relationship. The first person he killed was Max Jensen, aged 24, at the Sinclair Service Station on July 19th 1976. The next was Ben Bushnell, aged 25 on July 20th 1976 at the City Centre Motel in Provo. Both victims had complied with Gary’s demands and both left behind wives and young children.

Gary Gilmore wanted to die, or at least he felt he deserved to for what he had done, according to some articles Gary had been diagnosed with ASPD and there is some debate whether his actions were a result of this. Because of his want to die however, his case became part of a legal battle and although his execution had been scheduled for 7:49am, they didn’t get the go ahead from the judge until 7:45am that same day.

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Watching documentaries about Gary is really interesting, it is incredible seeing how much you early life affects you and from a psychological point of view this project has so much to think about.

Lorna linked us to a recreation of Gary’s execution, which I found really interesting. In reports they say that the execution took place in a warehouse on the prison grounds and I think that this is really telling of the attitude surrounding Gary’s death?

I also found this article was really good for understanding more about the crime and the BBC On This Day page helped to contextualise the whole situation to me